


Azimuth

by hellkitty



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA Miss Giddy Saves Just About Everyone Including a Bunch of OCs I Made Up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seeing Stars

When the Gigahorse’s engine caught fire, Miss Giddy decided to simply relax into death.  There was not much fight left in her, she thought, that hadn't been jounced out along Joe's Fury Road, and as long as she didn't think of all the stories that would be lost with her, as long as she didn't look down to the names tattooed on her spindly arms, she thought maybe, maybe, she could die in peace. Simply surrender, she figured, to the smoke that was filling the cabin, scorching her lungs, surrender to the body, and let all the stories marked on her skin go, like the ash she would become. 

It might have been shouting that she heard,  or war, or just the thunder of her blood in her ears, but the hand grabbing a star of her dress, hauling her out of the spilled-over vehicle, was real enough, and she felt the grasp and haul, and a screaming comet of pain from her body and then there was sun and shadow and a jarring bouncing and then the hard drop to stillness, and she felt a body, arms, a chest, curled around her, over her, as the earth shuddered against an explosion. 

She didn't fight, except the vaguest disappointment that she was not going to die, after all; that she'd have to scrape up some will to live, some way to carry on.  

"Yealrigh?"  

The words seemed bubbled, under water, for a moment, taking a moment to break the surface into coherence. Was she all right? Were any of them?  

"Shoulder," she managed, weakly. "My shoulder."  If she must live, if she must think, then let it be free from that thought-blocking pain.  

The War Boy let her slip to the ground--and she felt the change from the living sinew of his body to the hard stone.  "Dislocated, yeah," he said, thoughtfully.  And she knew just enough what that meant to wish she didn't.  She was no warrior.  She was an old woman, stuffed with stories.  

Feet, pounding on stone off to one side. "Gear.  Looks like they've decided they've had enough."  

"For now," the War Boy over her said.  Gear, she thought, committing it to memory. Maybe she would live long enough to add another story to her collection, and she wanted to get the names right.  "You done a dislocated shoulder?"

"Yeah," the Boy who had run up said, and then his face shifted, wary. "Her?"

Gear nodded.  "Never done it, myself."  

The other War Boy looked queasy, even to Miss Giddy’s lopsided angle. "I can show you how." 

"Just do it," Gear said, rasping and hostile. "Get it done with, already." 

"But she's--" the War Boy couldn't even finish the sentence, hands flashing up in a helpless gesture.  

"Please," Miss Giddy said.  "It would help."  There was no good delaying pain. She’d learned that in all her years. She might not want it done, but it had to happen, so...let it happen.  

The War Boy and Gear exchanged looks she couldn't read, and then he skidded down over the rest of the rocks, skipping gravel. He moved fast, taking her hand, straightening it at the elbow. "It's gonna--"

"I know."  She didn't know the pain itself, but she knew the theory. 

And that was the difference between theory and practice, as he jerked her arm toward him, twisting it from the wrist, and her world seemed to lose color and sound, and for a long moment it just felt like...floating in some horrible empty void. 

And then she was back and the pain was ebbing and she felt tears drying on her cheeks, and she hoped neither of them saw the tears, because even an old woman has her dignity and pride.  They were watching her, waiting.  Waiting for her to say...something. 

"You really do see stars," she said, weakly.  

It was the right thing to say: they laughed, that kind of laugh that was mostly shattering through nerves and fear, because they'd seen her tears, after all. "Yeah," Gear said. "You really do."    



	2. Quiet Victories

Her ankle was injured too, Miss Giddy found, as she tried to stand, and so she ended up joining the collection of survivors from the Citadel, by the scorched wreck, by hobbling, slow and uneven, leaning against a shattered bit of a lance Gear had scrounged up for her. 

It was either that, or cling to Gear, and the War Boy, she thought, had better things to do.  

The air still burned from gasoline and the sweetish reek of scorched mother’s milk, but heat had become almost meaningless, here, with the sun baking down on the ragged group of survivors: a half-dozen or so War Boys, more or less wounded, and as Miss Giddy settled herself onto a lump of stone, the musician staggered down, led by another War Boy.  

Injured War Boys, a historian, and a musician: not exactly the cast of an epic saga, she thought.  

“Situation?” Gear demanded, brusquely, as the War Boy left Coma to settle himself cross legged on the ground. 

“They’re gone. For now.”

“Who?” Miss Giddy cut in. 

“Rock riders.” Gear squinted down the narrow cut.  “Kind of their turf.”  

“Gas Towners didn’t help, haring off like that.”  

“Distraction, at any rate,” Gear said. “What we got for weapons?”

Another of the War Boys spoke up, to Miss GIddy’s left. “Twenty three lances, and a couple more we can probably salvage up.” 

“Some of the vehicles are still slick, but….” An eloquent shrug up toward the wall of twisted, burned metal and stone that blocked the road.  Impassable, even to Miss Giddy’s eyes.  

Gear sighed, the kind of sigh that was a sag of surrender. 

“Water,” Miss Giddy suggested.  She was a weak old woman; sometimes she could play that part, like now, when they needed direction. “The injured need water.” Everyone needed water, honestly, but War Boys didn’t think that way. 

“Radiators. Of the bunged up ones,” one of the War Boys suggested, hesitant. “Gonna be hot and greasy but…”

“But it’s water.”  Gear nodded. “Right. You. And you.  See what you can scrounge of that, and--” 

And his words died under the buzz of the small, light engines of the rock rider’s bikes.  

Everyone tensed, even Miss Giddy, who had...four feet of warped metal pole to fight with, and no knowledge how to use it.  

“Parley!” 

Gear snatched up one of the lances, moving toward the gap in the vehicles. “What do you want?”  

A rev of the small engine, and a scornful laugh. “Not talking with you, War Boy. Someone with some real authority.”  

Miss Giddy hauled herself to her feet. She had no authority, if she’d ever, and certainly not for a war party, but she knew the rock riders had seen her with Immortan Joe.  And what good’s a storyteller if she can’t bluff?  “I am.” 

Gear shook his head, curtly. “Miss Giddy. Don’t trust ‘em.” 

“The worst they can do to me is kill me,” she said, more lightly than she felt, but it was true. Rock riders weren’t known for mercy, but they weren’t especially cruel. Unlike the Gas Towners.  “And then you’ll be forewarned.”  Useful, in a way they understood. She pushed past him, hobbling, using the lance as a cane or a crutch, until she came out in the open, where the chieftain of the rock riders sat, straddling his bike.  

“You don’t look like much of a warrior,” he said. 

“Maybe that means I can think of solutions to problems other than war,” she said, smoothly, wishing she felt half as confident, or even as stable, as she sounded. But she knew the War Boys were behind her, listening, and she knew that this was a chance to--maybe--end bloodshed at least for a while. 

“Not sure I want to risk my people on anything as thin as a maybe,” he said. “Especially interlopers on our land.” 

“We’ll clear out,” she said. “We just need some time.” 

“Time? You’ve made the Gap unpassable, for a week. More.” 

“And in a week’s time, maybe the Gas Town and Bullet Farm boys will have moved onto something else.”  They were in their own crises: everyone had lost their leader.  Who knew how it would shake out? But she suspected they’d have better things to do than press advantage on the gap this far out. 

“Another maybe,” the rock rider countered.  

“The future is always a web of maybes,” she said. “Until it becomes the past, and then it is a nexus of what might have beens.” 

The chieftain barked a flat laugh. “Since you’re so deft with words, why not turn that skill into explaining why I ‘maybe’ shouldn’t kill you and all your half-grown pups?”

Ah. That. She wished she had half his even mocking confidence. “There’s been enough death today,” she said, simply, the words as true as dusty stones.

“Not sure your boys feel that.”

“They do.” They’d lost their comrades in arms, their brothers. And their god. It was the loss beyond mere defeat. She could feel it in them, a sort of hollowness in the thin shell of their half lives.  “They just want to go home.”  

“War Boys,” the chieftain waggled a finger at her, “only want to go to their Valhalla. And we’re all too willing to help ‘em get there.” 

She looked over her shoulder at the twisted wreck of the War Rig, the vehicles mashed together. “You can’t move that on your own.”  

“We can manage,” he said, but she could hear the doubt in his voice. Rock riders moved stone, small.  This was steel: too large, too heavy.   “And as for the bodies,” he gave a showy shrug, tangling his helmet’s mop of fur and feathers and string. “The vultures’ll make quick work.”

“Not quick enough,” she said.  “And they’ve diseased blood, the War Boys.” A filthy thing to bring up, but she was desperate, trying to keep the fear under wraps. Not for her--she’d figured her life was forfeited as soon as Joe had stormed into the Vault.  But the Boys.  They were depending on her, just as the Wives had, and she could not let them down. Not without trying, at least. “Let us go, and we’ll come back for salvage, move it all away.”  

He fell silent, and she couldn’t see his eyes under his thick goggles, but she could feel them on her, weighing her, judging her.  “Why should we trust you?”

“Because it’s a new world, now.  All the old alliances are undone, and the knots can be retied, in new ways.”

“Can be. Or like rocks,” he scuffed his boot, kicking gravel, until a stone tumbled down the small ledge, “simply follow gravity.”  

“It’s a gamble,” she admitted.  “But it’s not so much for you to gamble, is it?”  If he killed them all, he’d have to move all the wreckage. If not…surely he saw that. 

Surely.  

He grunted, and then hauled up on his handlebars, right hand peeling on the throttle.  Dirt sprayed from his rear tire as he spun around, heading back to his own people, leaving Miss Giddy alone, with the eyes, and lives, of the War Boys weighing heavy on her withered shoulders.  

***

“Perimeters!” Gear called out, as Miss Giddy came back between the overturned vehicles. The sun was starting to set, and he could feel the heat leach off the stone, already, shadows starting to spread and blur their edges. He could read uncertainty in her body, the set of her mouth, as she gave him a bleak sort of nod.  And the mobile War Boys moved, fast, honed by instinct and practice, scrambling onto the vehicles fearlessly, nimbly, enough that her own exhausted limbs ached in envy.  “Think they’ll attack?” 

Miss Giddy shrugged. She wished she knew. 

“Best be ready,” Gear said, after a moment, as if she’d given an answer, and he was agreeing with her, taking a moment to stand, hand on hips, looking around the small enclosure.  “Lada, what’ve you got?”  

Another War Boy trotted along the top of the upturned War Rig. “We’ll need something to protect from above. Working on pulling some sheet.”  

Gear nodded.  Rock riders attacked by coming over, so their little circle was almost a trap, he thought. Too late, though, to move now. “A few shelters. Need some sand for fire suppression.”  

“On it,” Lada said. “Trying to scout a way back, too.” 

“Yeah?” 

A shrug. “Probably up and over. Won’t be pretty, but think I’ve found us a way.”  

“If we can hold out till morning….”

“Yeah, not keen on trying it at night myself, much less with wounded.” 

Neither was Gear.  

Lada dropped down into a crouch, lowering his voice. “Could leave the wounded.  The ones who can’t make it. Rear guard.” 

Gear hesitated, uneasy. 

“At least the musician. The old lady. They can’t hold their own in combat. Can barely walk.”

“We take them with us,” he said, trying to cut off an argument.  “Could be useful, when we get to the Citadel.” He hated saying it, somehow, but it was true. If the Imperator had made it back to the Citadel, they needed a ticket in. They needed anything they could.

Everyone had to be useful, but War Boys knew that sometimes...you could only do what you could do. 

“Set up some guard shifts, and we’ll...see what happens. Make sure everyone’s got a lance, at least.”  

Lada nodded, and ran off, leaping from the vehicle’s side-turned twisted tire to the hood of a half-wrecked pursuit car.  And Gear was left with nothing to do...but think. 

That was the last thing he wanted to do.  Immortan Joe was dead--the kind of shock that shattered the world.  That was...that wasn’t supposed to happen. Ever.  He was immortal, except he wasn’t.  He’d died, just like everyone else, and the sky hadn’t split open, and the earth hadn’t protested. He’d died...like any other man. 

What did that mean about Valhalla?  What did that mean about when they died?  

All Gear knew was that suddenly, he was a bit less eager to find out.  

***

The buzz of a motorbike split through Miss Giddy’s fitful sleep. The War Boys, even the sick ones, were already alert, moving to defensive positions, grabbing lances.  She felt helpless, herself, but she clutched her broken lance anyway, holding it in front of her.  She was already on borrowed time, she figured. She could go out fighting.  It would be better than becoming, well, what she’d heard Rock Riders did with their captives.  

There was the leaping jump of a motorbike, and then one of the riders was among them, in the little circle of the burned out vehicles, kicking up sand as the bike landed, long strands from his helmet flying as he looked around, spotted Miss Giddy, and unslung a bag from over his shoulder, flinging it at her feet, before roaring off, dropping low enough to skid almost flat on the ground under the lunging War Boys, and then he was away. 

“The hell--!”  Gear came pounding over the sand, and for a moment it looked to Miss Giddy that he might throw himself between it and her.  But she was already bending over it, fingers picking at the knot.  

“Food,” she said, almost laughing with relief.  “It’s just food.”  She held up a packet of dried fruit, another that smelled of smoked meat.  

“Poisoned, probably,” a War Boy said. 

Miss Giddy shook her head. “No one would waste good food; not when they could just let us go without.”  Simple common sense, she thought, and not at all swayed by the smell of the meat.  Not at all.  All right, maybe a little. But she wouldn’t speak anything she thought would harm the War Boys. They’d suffered enough.  

“Right,” Gear said, taking the packets from her. “Let’s divide this up. Everyone gets the same. Gonna need it for tomorrow.”  He peered back over. “What you got there?” 

Miss Giddy shook out the bottom of the bag into her hand, and gave a soft laugh:  it was a pair of dice, wrapped in a twist of skin. ‘For the old wummin’, it said. Apparently the Rock Riders would take the gamble, after all. 

***

The food wasn’t enough to sate anyone, but it was enough to kindle up some hope, and the War Boys followed orders well enough to be absolutely ruthlessly fair in dividing it up: each person got a finger’s length of dried meat and three slices of fruit, with a half-cup of water, and Miss Giddy went around with it, passing it out like a communion.  The wounded War Boys were the hardest, the way they chewed solemnly on the meat, letting it soften in their mouths, under haunted eyes.  “Rest,” Miss Giddy said, patting a shoulder. “We’ll need all our strength for morning.” And the injured boys nodded with a wisdom far beyond their short years, but they seemed to take comfort in her voice, her touch. 

And then there was the musician. He looked...shellshocked, really, forlorn, his hands empty and lost on his lap, where they’d splayed when the War Boys had settled him down, hours ago. As if he hadn’t moved, at all, since then. “Coma?” 

He gave no sign of acknowledgement, until she reached forward, tapping his arm. He jolted, hands flailing as if expecting an attack, before slowly, uneasily, calming down.  

She patted his shoulder, again, soothingly, patiently. She couldn’t imagine how terrifying it must be for him.  “I have some food for you.” 

He shook his head vaguely, refusing. 

“Yes,” she said, gently. “Please. Just a piece of fruit?”  She pressed one of the dried slices into his hand, and after a moment, he brought it to his mouth, nibbling off a piece, just enough to make an effort.  She pulled out her own portion, settling next to him, conversationally. “They need us, you know, the War Boys.” 

He tilted his head, listening. 

“When you lose everything,” she said, “you need something to rebuild yourself around.”  She took a sip of water, warm and greasy.  “All they know is fighting, all they know is war.”  He gave a grave nod--he knew more, even. “Fighting is nothing but rushing to die, unless there’s something to protect.” She leaned over, her sleeve brushing his. “Right now, that’s us.  And they’ll need us more as we get closer to home. Because it won’t be home anymore.”  God only knew what they’d find there.  But it was some place to go, and they needed a destination.  

Coma tipped his head back, almost as if he were staring at the evening sky, thinking for a long moment, and then his hand found hers solemnly signalling for more food.  

Not all victories, Miss Giddy thought, involve death. 


	3. Bought

The Valkyrie cursed, language blacker than the smoke that had etched itself onto her skin, as she half-ran, half-stumbled, behind the man on his motorbike. Not the kind the Vuvalini used, but smaller, faster engined and light. Designed to fly, she thought, and the rider seemed to resent being grounded by having to drag her along, up the dawn-painted rock. He came to an abrupt stop, rear tire schussing a spray of dirt and stone in an arc before him, and the Valkyrie had to catch herself before she collided with the bike's high rear wheelarch, tumbling awkwardly, her bound palms only able to break her fall at the cost of hard abrasion.

Her lungs burned, still have scorched from yesterday, and from the long run, hands tied before her, and it took her a moment to look up and see why they'd stopped.

Them.

Others.

The ones they had been fighting.  She recognized the pale skin, the repulsive scarring, and the long lances they carried.  The Vuvalini didn't hate, but she found it hard not to, with the memories of her companions dead at their hands too raw in her mind.  They had taken everything from her, from them. The Vuvalini were no more, just a few scattered survivors in an alien land where they were not a tribe, but chattel.

Like her.  

"Chieftain said," the rider announced, his voice strange under the helmet, "you agreed to clear the gap of all this trash."

One of the white men stepped forward.  "So?" His voice seemed half challenging.  But only half.

"You left this trash behind," the rider said, tugging at the rope around the Valkyrie's neck, enough for her to feel her throat close, defensive.

"She's not one of us," another of the pale men said, quickly, angrily. Oh, had she killed one of his friends?  The Valkyrie did not feel bad. She wasn't one of them. They could agree on that.  

The rider gave something that might have been a shrug under his leathers, decorated with bones and feathers and flaps of faded fabric. "He thought you might say that." He rolled on the throttle, turning the bike around. Had she been dragged up here only to be forced to run back?  The Valkyrie twisted her wrists, ropes biting at her skin, trying to ignore the burn from her skinned palms, where she could feel the pinpricks of blood. If she could just...

"Wait!"  

A woman's voice, the last timbre she'd thought to hear among these savage men.  It was a woman, old enough to be the Keeper, she thought, hair that fleecy white cloud.  She tugged at the first pale man's elbow and he bent, listening. Did he listen to her? Was she in charge? Was all their trouble, all that killing, at the behest ofanother woman?

No true woman, the Valkyrie thought.

The man looked up, right at her, then at the rider. Listening to the old woman, whose face seemed mottled and dark. Obeying her.  "We'll take her."

No! She didn't want to be taken by them.  She didn't want to be taken by any of them. They had killed her friends, her sisters, her people.  

"Not that easy, War Boy," the rider said. "For a price."  

A moment--just that--of hesitation. "What price."  He didn't seem to be willing to pay, much. 

"Five of your lances."

The white men--War Boys?--exchanged looks, wary, mistrusting, but then, "You need the powder, huh?"

"Not your concern!" the rider snapped. "Wait much longer and the price goes up to ten."

She could almost hear the snarl of the first man again, as he grabbed two of the heavy-tipped lances and flung them in front of the rider. Three more, clattering down around each other and the Valkyrie shuddered.  To be bought at all, to be a thing...and to be paid for with weapons of death.  

She wished she'd stayed where they had found her, clinging to the Weaver's dead body, begging the stars and sun and Lady Moon in all her silver mystery to go with her.  

But it was too late, it was done and the rider unlooped his end of the rope from the handlebars, flinging it free, before climbing off to gather the lances.  The Valkyrie could tell some of the men were weighing the idea of a double cross, of attacking the man.  They had no faith, then, no integrity, she thought.  But they held off, almost rigidly frozen, until the rider had stowed the lances in a rack on his bike, and the high whine of his engine descended down the path.  

Then, they let loose, rounding on the first man--War Boy, she thought--even as he stooped to pick up the end of the heavy rope.  A chorus of angry voices:

"Another mouth!" "One of the enemy!" "The lances!" And a dozen other things, a barrage of blame.  

The first one's face was a scowl as he knelt before her, jerking a knife from its sheath.  The rope didn't cut easily, between her wrists, and there was an awful delay where she could smell the man-sweat of him, and the aconite sting of something else, before the strands parted, and her wrists fell free.  

The Valkyrie couldn't help herself, clutching her hands back, rubbing where the ropes had bitten, gnawed into her tanned wrists.  "I suppose you expect thanks," she said.

"We spent five lances on you," he said.  "You owe us thanks."

"You didn't have to," she said, rising to her feet. "I didn't ask you to."

"I did."  The old woman, coming forward, and the Valkyrie could see from here that the mottling on her skin wasn't a disease but words--hundreds of them--etched into her skin.

An abomination, to mark your body, to have it fall from its perfect state.  "The rock riders are...not kind with their women."

"And you are?  We heard about your 'Immortan'," she sneered the word so hard she tilted forward, "and the mockery he made of the word 'wife'."

"Immortan Joe is dead," the old woman said.  "Things are in flux.  We can change them.  Your sisters--"

"Don't speak of them!"  This old woman had no right to mention the Vuvalini.

"Nothing in history should be censored," the woman replied, placidly, folding her hands--also written on, every finger, every joint--in her sleeves. "Your sisters are at the Citadel."

"If any survive."

"If any of us survived, either," snapped one of the War Boys, before the old woman hushed him.  Who was she that these savages obeyed her? The Vuvalini did not deal with men because they were wild, uncontrollable.  Yet this woman....

"The Rock Riders," the old woman continued, returning to her earlier words, "treat women as property. Communal property." Her eyes said everything the Valkyrie didn't want to read, and she couldn't hide the shudder.  To be passed around among men...she'd kill herself first, and never mind that it was a sin.

The old woman nodded, in sympathy. "We can at least spare you that.  And take you to the Citadel."

"Why?" Why help her at all?  

"When the world shatters," the woman said, speaking in her riddles, again, "sometimes it's an opportunity.  To mix up the pieces instead of gluing it together exactly like it was."  She offered a smile, which the Valkyrie didn't want. "Miss Giddy."

"Valkyrie," she said, shortly. Not her real name, but only her sisters and mothers in the tribe would know that.

"Valkyrie," the old woman echoed. "Chooser of the slaughtered."

"I have been," the Valkyrie admitted. Even as recently as yesterday.  And as she looked up at the cluster of men--War Boys--that now 'owned' her, however nominally, it felt too long ago, already.  

“You may again,” Miss Giddy said. “We never know what the world brings us to.”


	4. The Crossing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four face an obstacle.

“Oh. Dear.”  Miss Giddy felt her strength fail her, as she came to a stop amid the small cluster of War Boys.  She’d heard there was a gap in the path--a path which was more than enough of a challenge for her, with her age and ankle, but looking at it, the word ‘gap’ seemed entirely inadequate.  It was easily the length of the War Rig’s tanker, a space where the path simply...didn’t exist, crumbled into an unmerciful talus far enough below to give her vertigo.  

“We can make it,” Lada said, pointing up. “Did the crossing myself. Chromed some markers for you.”  

Miss Giddy squinted and, yes, there they were, stones marked with the chromed paint the War Boys kept with them.  But they were high and far apart--designed for a War Boy’s height and a War Boy’s strength.  

“Did it unweighted,” Coil pointed out. 

“Did it three times,” Lada countered.  “We can manage. Always have.”  

“What about the injured?” Gear had planted his hands on his hips, contemplating the imposing lean of jagged rocks. 

“Someone could spider over some ropes,” Coil gestured with his hands.  “Could rig up a sling.”  

Gear nodded. “Right. Get on that. And something to bring over the lances.” The two other War Boys moved back through the growing crowd, as the injured caught up.  Gear gave a final nod, stepping in front of Miss Giddy and dropping to his knees, back toward her. “All right, get on.” 

On?  

“Come on,” he said. “Gonna take you over.”  

“I--” she couldn’t come up with a protest--she couldn’t do the climb herself. She could wait to cross with the injured, but having to haul herself over, even by a sling? “Are you sure?” 

“Wasn’t an offer. Order.” 

He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, clearly, so she moved forward, gingerly, wrapping her arms around his neck, yelping as he stood up, hands pulling her knees around his waist.  She could feel him against her--young and strong and sure, lifting her up and the ground seemed already far too far away beneath her.  

Gear moved toward the wall, reaching up. She felt his shoulder shift, muscle bunch, as his fingertips hooked over an outcrop of stone. “Ready?”

No.  She wasn’t sure she was ever ready for this. She managed a soft ‘yes’ as if speaking too loudly might throw off his balance. Or the world would hear her lie. 

“Won’t let you fall,” he said, and pulled up. 

Miss Giddy’s knees clamped around his ribs, pressing herself paper tight against him as the ground moved away, and her world became motion she couldn’t control, clinging to a shifting, moving body, trying to think forward, positive thoughts, instead of the awareness of all that empty space yawning behind them.  Miss Giddy had felt fear so many times in her life: that slow, frictionless claw as the world she'd grown up in shattered around her, that sudden, sharp fear of a gun to the face.  She'd thought--or maybe hoped--at her age she'd be immune to it. Numb to it.  But it found her again, clinging to the War Boy, praying sureness into his hands, and trying to will herself to be lighter, light as air, behind him. 

She felt him gather himself, muscles in his back coiling, and then a sidewards launch that drew a quaver of fear from her, and then a hard, jarring impact that jolted her chin against his skull.  

"You okay?"  

She nodded, detaching one hand that she'd knotted around his neck to touch her face, fearing blood. "I'm sorry," she said. 

"Nah. You're fine." She wished she believed it.  He let her untangle her limbs, slowly, struggling to feet that seemed to quiver under her weight, scooping an arm under her shoulder. "You're fine," he repeated, as if trying to make that an order, too. It was all he knew: orders, demands, hierarchy. And even so, he was trying. Even so, there was kindness.  So when Miss Giddy murmured out a 'thank you,' patting his arm, it was for more than just the way he'd carried her over that gap. It was for sharing his strength, for his faith in himself, and his confidence. 

  
  


***

Coma stopped when he felt the hand on his arm. “Careful,” the War Boy said.  Coma felt a pressure, pulling him down, and he dropped, warily, to one knee. “Feel this?” The War Boy grabbed his hand, waving it where path should be. He felt nothing, only empty space, and the feel of a lot more emptiness beneath. He nodded. 

“Got to climb up and around.  Gonna go first.” 

He felt hands on him again, and a tug. Tying something around his waist.  “Follow my lead, yeah?” 

Coma nodded, uncertainly. He didn’t like this.  At all. And he liked it less when he felt the cord around his waist tug him upward, to his feet.  “Here,” the War Boy said, pushing him forward, and Coma felt himself lose balance, flinging out his hands to find the uneven rock face in front of him.  “Up,” the War Boy said. And then there was grit scraping, and the sense of movement to his left, and the War Boy heaved himself up, clambering on the rocks.  “Come on.” 

Coma’s hands struck the rocks, hard, jagged stone digging into his hands.  He reached, blindly. Up, the War Boy had said. His hand groped, found a jut of stone, enough to wrap his fingers around, and he hauled up, feet scrambling for purchase, and then his right hand moved, slamming against an outcrop of rock, before moving to lever against it.  

The stones hurt his hands, wearing through his callouses, and he felt more than once the heated sting of a cut, wincing as he moved. 

He slipped, more than once, and only the strength of those hands--used to, as they were, hours of work--saved him from slipping down, falling off the wall of stone into what had felt like an endless depth below, his knees banging against the rock, bruising his legs. 

The War Boy ahead of him, whom he could only vaguely feel as a chiding sort of tug against his waist, said nothing, concentrating, no doubt, on his own hand and footholds, until Coma heard a soft, "Halfway!"  It would be encouraging if he wasn't already so exhausted, muscles worked in ways they weren't used to, his calves cramping and tight, toes in his battered shoes little stones of their own.  He almost wished for a War Boy's thick boots. Or his strength.  Eyes, at least, he thought.  There were only a few times he'd wished he could see, wished like a pain in the bottom of your belly. Like sunrise.  He'd always wondered about it, knowing how it felt, the first rays of what had to be light but what he felt as a gentle heat against his face, the way the birds in the orchards above would stir and start singing as though in presence of some miracle. He wanted to see what they saw.  

Now, he wanted to see to survive--this, he doubted, would look like a miracle.  Just a seemingly endless wall of brittle, uncaring stone, baking them against its scraping heat.  He just wanted to see that there was an end to it.  

"Down now. Slow," The War Boy ahead of him cautioned, and he felt the tug shift direction, guiding him at a downward angle.  

Coma hated this.  It probably wasn't even original: he'd figure anyone would hate something that reminded them of their helplessness, of how quickly mortality could drag them down.  You are weak, his pulse seemed to say, over and over, like a building chant. You are weak, you are weak, you are weak. 

He felt weak--tired and sore and bruised, and even more weak in will.  He couldn't do this. It was too much--too much to ask, too much to expect.  And if he heard right, Immortan Joe was dead, and the Citadel gone and the world was different and he didn't know the notes to the new song it was playing, couldn't even find the beat, and it felt like only a matter of time before the War Boys would realize he was useless to them. Wouldn't it be easier to just throw aside the handful of time left rather than let it trickle slow through his fingers?  It would be so easy. Just let go. Just 'slip'.  A moment of weightlessness, which would almost feel familiar to him, and then, nothing.  

It would be so easy....

"Come on!" the War Boy called, "You can do it!" 

He couldn't, he knew he couldn't. And if Coma had a voice, he would have yelled that back at the War Boy, but he didn't, and the only way he could get him to understand was to show him, was to try, and fail, and fall. 

"One more, yeah, and then just jump." Just jump. Just.  Just trust in a voice, in gravity.  He nodded, reaching out with his left hand, finding a hook of stone, and heaved against it, left foot scrambling for purchase, finding a tiny toe grip almost as high up as his hip, trying to ignore the gravel kicked loose, clattering down behind him, under him.  He pulled up, and found a better perch, just enough to brace both feet on, toes mashed together, and then launched himself, blindly, not even knowing when to get his feet under him. He landed with a hard impact, knees and feet and skinned palms, but it was solid ground, that didn't shift, and he was still trying to tell himself he'd made it, he was alive, when the War Boy scooped him up, under the arms, whooping in his ear, pulling him into a rough hug. He clung back, shaking from adrenaline, almost climbing up the War Boy's body, and it was like he'd been plugged in again, current pouring through his body, and he realized he was alive, and more than anything, wanted to stay that way. 

 

***

She could feel their eyes on her, as the number of War Boys on the edge dwindled.  None had spoken to her, except the old woman. Not that the Valkyrie was complaining. She was tired of words, and the last thing she wanted to do was share them with these men.  

Her turn, it seemed, or at least there was a lull in Boys taking their place in line to take the climb over the gap.  

She wasn’t going to wait to go last, and risk being left behind.  She hated these War Boys, but the words of the old woman had chilled her: there were, perhaps, worse horrors.  And though the men here had ignored her, it was better than what that Miss Giddy had intimated would be her fate with the Rock Riders. 

It wasn’t a hard climb, really. It hurt her hands, already raw and scraped, but it felt...good, in a way, to stretch your limbs, to move with confidence and surety. Most of all, it felt good to have something fill her mind. The past was an aching emptiness, and the future was uncertain, a shifty picture that refused to settle into focus. But now, now was just big enough to be that next step, that next rock, that next pull and reach.  Now was the heat of the sun on her dark glossy hair, the warm stone against her, her body bruised but alive, and now was...all she could handle. 

  
  


***

Slit cursed, to himself, to the War Boy hooking him to the sling, to the universe, to anyone and anything that would listen. Everything hurt--his head throbbed, his vision weird and flat with one eye bandaged, and his arm set up a cold solid throb against the heat. “Don’t need help,” he said, jerking his good hand across the rope. This was stupid. This whole thing. They should have left him to die, he thought. But now, here they were, fussing around him like they were doing him a damn favor, bandaging his wounds, binding up his eye, which, yeah, he’d seen enough and that was fucking lost. 

Lancer, blind in one eye.    
Fuck. 

He didn’t want that, didn’t want this, but they kept pushing him along, and he had a little too much steel in his blood to push them back.  None of them would take him out quick. None of them. The best he could hope for was to be dropped, abandoned, left to sit by the side of the path, in the heat and brittle despair, and let death drag its slow way toward him. 

Slit didn’t have the patience for that. 

But he didn’t need help. Or sympathy, and if he had a free hand, one not bound against his ribs, he’d smack the look off Lada’s face.  

Slit kicked, hooking one foot around the rope, so he hung underneath it.  

The rope bowed under his weight, and he felt the air seem to pulse around him, like gravity was inviting him down. He knew better than to look, than to give into that siren whisper of emptiness behind him.  It would be easy--too easy. And he’d get more pity for it, War Boys lamenting, instead of celebrating, his plunging death.

“Disgusting,” he snarled at the thought, at the yawn of air, and crossed his ankles over the rope. He jerked forward, pulling with his one good hand, and scooting his legs up close. 

Now for the hard part--the quickfast letting go, feeling gravity pull his shoulders away from safety, toward shadow.  And the fast grab back on the rope, cursing at the tightness in his bruised, strained ribs.  

And repeat, he thought, cursing with each slow pull, inching his way across the chasm. 

His shoulder was shaking, trembling from exhaustion, when the far side hit the top of his view, and the rope sloped upward.  He felt every move of his deltoid like an acid burn, like something pouring a mercury scald through the muscle. His forearm felt like dead iron, his hand almost frozen in a gripping hook, and he fought, with the last of his strength, the wash of relief as he felt hands grabbing him, pulling him closer, and up, and then the hot dusty ground under his back, solid ground with its silence.    



End file.
